Sat, 02 May 2020 14:45:42 -0600WeeblySun, 15 Mar 2020 01:52:30 GMThttps://www.shepherdaitheros.com/blog/give-god-the-respect-he-deservesIn today's culture everyone is always trying to be as respectful as possible even to people that really aren't that respectable. Only one is treated with disrespect by almost everyone including Christians, and that person is God.

I don't know exactly when people stopped caring about this particular sin, but taking God's name in vain (that is, with no respect or regard,) has become common even for children. It is rare to meet anyone that doesn't do this despite the fact many of them are Christian. No one seems to be aware of the severity of what they are saying, God isn't even really given a thought which in a way just makes it worse. It is a common everyday thing to just casually use the name of the creator of the universe and all of us, as a curse word. The bible is clear that this is a sin and yet no one seems to care and that is something that really needs to change.On top of all of that, people use his name to justify things that are outright evil. I have seen people try and use Jesus to justify abortion. I can't think of anything more insane than that. God created those children and people actually dare to use Him to justify their murder. This is only one example of it but there are a million others. Just as it is a sin to use His name as a curse it is definitely a sin to use His name to justify something horrendous like abortion. If anything, this is actually worse because it not only offends God, it makes Him look evil.

Everyone is absolutely terrified of disrespecting other people because you never want to offend them, but with God it isn't even a thought. We need to get our priorities in order and give God the respect that He actually deserves. Whatever we are worried about with other people, it doesn't even matter in comparison to offending God. He literally created the universe, and is 100% morally perfect. He is always with us and helping us, guiding us even as we disrespect him like a loving father. There is no one more worthy of respect than God and yet He gets the least. And as I mentioned before it is literally a sin to take His name in vain because it is that serious and yet we are teaching our children to not even worry about it!

I know that this is something so ingrained in the culture of the world that it isn't likely to go away anytime soon, if ever, but as Christians we need to stop. We thank God whenever nice things are happening to us and pray to him everyday, but don't hesitate to disrespect him at the same time. This isn't right and it needs to change. Taking God's name in vain is something worse than cursing and needs to be treated as such, people need to be corrected when they do this no matter how accepted by the culture it is. We don't let it slide when people commit adultery, lie, or steal, and we shouldn't let this slide either. All sin is serious and should be treated as such, and even if it wasn't a sin it would still be a problem because God deserves so much better than that. He died for our sins because He loves and cares about us and always wants what is best for us. We don't even remotely deserve such an awesome God so let's start giving him the respect he deserves and stop worrying so much about everyone else.

]]>Sun, 23 Feb 2020 17:54:14 GMThttps://www.shepherdaitheros.com/blog/dont-trust-modern-cartoonsI have talked about the kind of damage the school system can do to your kids but there are other things that effect them too. Let's talk about the cartoons kids watch, casually indoctrinating them with most parents not even noticing it.

We cannot afford to trust cartoons anymore and we need to screen everything.

Growing up, I watched all kinds of cartoons and even still like some of them. I think this can be said for most of the people in my generation and even more so for people younger than me. It seems like a very harmless thing to watch cartoons, so long as we do it in moderation, but it has actually become a problem. Cartoons have begun to push more extreme political agendas at our kids and most of the time we don't even know about it because it is subtle. These subtle things cause the most damage, completely changing way our kids think about very important issues.

For now they are mostly pushing the agenda of homosexuality but it won't stay that way forever. Cartoons are casually showing same-sex relationships as if they are normal, and while it started out with background characters it is now being very obvious about it. It is only a matter of time until the next agenda is being pushed and it only ever gets worse. The government and Hollywood are trying their best to take over parenting our kids, and we need to be aware of what they are trying to do.

I learned all kinds of things from cartoons growing up and to some extent probably got indoctrinated to stuff myself, not that I would really know about it. Our minds are most susceptible when we are young and people take advantage of that. We can never let our guard down when raising our kids, there is always another agenda being pushed and in different ways. I am sure there are some I haven't even caught while doing my best to be aware of them. There was a time I turned on a YouTube video for my son that was perfectly fine and then suddenly there was an ad teaching sex ed... to my 2 year old son. I luckily caught that and was there to stop it but if I hadn't been paying attention it would have been very bad. Even more so if my son was a little older and really held on to all of the information.

The fact is, unless we are vigilant parents our kids are going to learn their morals from culture. Anyone that is paying attention will know that is a very bad thing. The culture of our country is going downhill and becoming more and more evil. The government reflects that pretty much perfectly, if we don't do all in our power to raise our kids right, they will do it for us and they are definitely trying to. If you aren't aware of it, you have to make yourself aware of it to protect your kids and even yourself. No one is actually immune to the stuff they are pushing on us, with the right music and set up, anything can be made to seem good on TV. If you aren't watching out for it, it won't just indoctrinate your kids, it will do the same to you.

]]>Mon, 17 Feb 2020 23:44:48 GMThttps://www.shepherdaitheros.com/blog/do-you-need-to-go-to-church-to-be-savedChurch is a pretty great thing, you get to gather in one place and see tons of other people who share your faith. You get to have fellowship and hear sermons every week to help further your relationship with God. With all that being said though, the church, as we think of it, is not necessary for you to be a Christian, you can never go even once and still be very much saved. Not only that, you could be closer to Jesus than most of the people that do go to church every Sunday.

The church has become an idol to some extent in modern society. We treat it like it has always been there and if you aren't part of it you should be ashamed. Some would even go as far to say if you don't go to church on Sunday you aren't even Christian. In our minds the church has become a major aspect of what it is to be a Christian, which makes sense since so many people are raised thinking that way. It is a good thing to have a place for everyone to gather and be together but it has been taken way too far and actually caused a lot of problems in the true church. We get so focused on the building that many of us forget, the church of Christ is made of people, and has nothing to do with the building.

Even if the church buildings didn't exist, the true church would still very much exist.They are convenient places to gather but that is where it ends, in most cases they are just huge wastes of money that could be going to good causes. We are all connected through Christ and we need to have fellowship with each other but we can do that anywhere. It could be our homes or it could be outside somewhere, it doesn't really matter so long as we gather with fellow Christians, but it has nothing to do with the church building itself.

We are very attached to the church buildings but honestly I think they have done more harm than good. They make our divisions stronger with all the many denominations having their own buildings. They have become an idol of sorts to many Christians and maintain many false converts. People that know nothing of Jesus go to church on Sunday and think that makes them genuine Christians. As I mentioned before they are also a huge drain on the donations given by the people going just to maintain and pay for the building. In many ways I believe we would be better off just meeting up in any random public place, it would certainly be cheaper and cause less division.

The buildings are simply part of a system we have created in society that we have grown very used to. That system has a lot of flaws that we really need to try and be aware of because they are creating some big problems. Never feel like you are somehow less of a Christian because you don't go to church. Make sure you have friends and family that are Christian, don't simply isolate yourself, but don't let anyone tell you that the building is somehow pivotal to your faith. There will come a day when the entire system we know falls apart and there aren't any church buildings anymore. God's church will still be here.

]]>Mon, 10 Feb 2020 20:26:30 GMThttps://www.shepherdaitheros.com/blog/abuse-is-not-an-excuse-to-sinI have talked a lot about how people make excuses to justify the sins they commit. Almost everyone does it to some extent, but there is one excuse I hear more than any other; abuse.

The type of abuse may vary but it is the main thing people seem to leap to when justifying something they have done wrong. We all have been abused to some extent because we are surrounded by other sinful people. Because of the things others have done to us or taught us to think, we basically act as though we can't change what we are doing. We take the blame and put it on someone else because they hurt us in some way. Crazy as it sounds, when someone gets abused they are actually more likely to start abusing other people the same way as compared to never treating someone else that way.

I was very guilty of this and probably still am sometimes. I went through all kinds of crap as I was growing up and it really sticks with you. Anyone that knows me well knows I have been struggling with depression for a long time now and I didn't even know it until recently. The sad thing is, I learned a lot of behaviors from my family that I then did myself. It would be very easy to just hold on to them forever and blame my family, but the reality is I am accountable for my own actions and so is everyone else.

No matter what circumstances you are in, past, present, or future, you are the one accountable for how you respond.

You can't do anything about what other people will decide to do or the things they will teach you as you grow up. You also can't do much to control the things your friends might try and pressure you into, but you can always decide for yourself if it is right or not. Even though it may not seem like it, there is always a choice and you can do the right thing, even if it requires sacrifice on your part. The key is not allowing other people to determine who you are going to be. You have to choose to be righteous no matter what the cost, and there is never truly an excuse to do anything different.

I know how easy it is to fall back on abuse as an excuse, the things people do to us can really hurt and scar us for life. No matter how deep the scar is though, we have to stop making excuses and change into the person Jesus wants us to be. There will always be an excuse. Something to justify any action we might take, but Jesus died so that we could be more than that. We have the power to become so much better because we literally have God at our side guiding the way. So let's stop blaming the past for how we are now and let it die with our old selves, because that is what happened when we came to Christ. The old you died, and a new creation was born right there. Don't get held down by the things that are better off buried with the old you.

]]>Sat, 01 Feb 2020 20:31:11 GMThttps://www.shepherdaitheros.com/blog/why-i-am-against-the-school-systemThis is a fun topic because almost no one agrees with me on it but I honestly believe the school system isn't just bad for everyone, it is actually straight up evil in some ways.

Now for most people it is pretty much a given that they had to go to school and they are going to do the same thing with their kids. Homeschooling isn't even really considered by most people because they are just going to do what is normal for them, which is of course the school system. It makes perfect sense, people want to be in their comfort zones and they don't want other people to think they are weird. It is a huge mistake to stay in our comfort zones here. Even if it is what we are expected to do, home schooling is a much better option logically and most importantly, morally.

The school system may seem like it is necessary but in reality it is just a tool for indoctrinating kids into all kinds of nonsense, especially these days. The most obvious example of this would be evolution which has become completely mainstream almost entirely because of the school system. In more recent memory they are blatantly teaching far leftist ideas to young children but that isn't even the worst of it.It doesn't end with that though, the system is also bad at teaching even the most basic stuff to kids. The system is designed to teach all kids one way, but everyone is unique and we learn things in different ways. Not only that but generally you don't even keep the same teachers year after year so they can't even really get to know you. Parents can teach their kids as individuals and according to the things they are actually interested in, the school system can't even compete with that. Home schoolers get better grades across the board and they spend 1/4th of the time actually doing school work. They also never get indoctrinated into any nonsense unless their parents are way off the mark or already got indoctrinated when they were in school. If you want your kid to really learn all the things they need to, including life skills that the schools never teach, homeschooling is the better choice by far.

Even more important than the actual education though is the moral problem there is with the school system. Sending a kid into that system almost guarantees they will fall away from God and there are several reasons why. The first reason is peer pressure, they will be surrounded by other kids pushing them to do all kinds of crazy stuff. Even if you are trying to raise your kids right, most other parents aren't and that will spread to your kid as well when they spend most of their days with these other kids. I know people like to think their kids can be a light in the darkness but at that age you are just asking for the light to be snuffed out. The second reason is what they are teaching which I already went into before, evolution and far leftist ideas. When you teach this stuff to a kid, they latch on to it and trust because they have no reason to think they are being lied to. You can tell them the most ridiculous crap in the world and they will believe you because they have no reason to think you are lying. The school system abuses this to make sure even kids with good parents will be lead astray. The third reason is probably the most important of all. They take your kids away from you. It has become so normal in our minds that we don't really think about it but we send our kids to be taken care of by the government for 8 hours a day plus sports and homework, by the end of it you barely even get to see your kid aside from weekends and the summer break. You can never compete with that, even the time you do spend with them will revolve around the school system that is basically trying to take over parenting for you.

This may be a shock to people but if you really study the bible you will actually find that God wants you to educate your own children. You are expected to teach them the way they should go and purposefully sending them to a place that will do the exact opposite is not doing your job. I am aware there are some situations where there is no choice but to send your kids to the public school system but in most cases there is just no reason to do it. Homeschooling is what is best for our kids and not shockingly it fits the biblical expectation perfectly. We need to stop handing off our kids to someone else and giving them all the responsibility, God expects us to teach our kids, not some random teachers being paid to indoctrinate them.

Now I know the kinds of things people are going to say so I am going to try and answer some of those things now. To the families with both Mom and Dad working, Mom should become a stay at home mom so she can homeschool the kids. The bible is very clear that men are the providers for the family, you don't need both of you out there earning money and there are more reasons than just homeschooling for that. I know just about everyone doing that thinks they could never survive without both people working but I promise you are wrong. I make 12 dollars an hour at my job and provide for me, my wife and my son without any real struggles or any government assistance. If I can do it and live comfortably, which we do, than so can you.

To the people that think they can't teach because they don't know much themselves. You can do a lot more than you think, the textbooks generally guide you through the entire thing. There are entire homeschooling courses pre-made for you that give you all the answers as well. I promise you will do just fine, it may not seem easy at first but it is the best thing you can do for your kids.

To the single parent who has literally no time to do this. This is one of the only exceptions where I can understand sending your kid to the school system willingly. My first suggestion would be to rely on grandparents or some other family to help you homeschool your kids but if that isn't an option either, all you can do is try your absolute best to counter anything the school tries to teach your kid. Most of it will be fine obviously, but a lot of it will be bad and you have to be very vigilante. As I said before the other kids will be pushing things as well that you don't want your kids to get into so just do your best.

I am sure there are more reasons people could think of to not homeschool but hopefully these answers apply to the majority. We must always do our absolute best as parents even when it is hard. A lot of parents like to think of school as a nice free babysitter so they can do whatever they want to do and that just isn't the right way to be. Our kids are important enough for us to want to give them our everything even when they make it hard for us. This is something I think we all struggle with to some extent but always try and remember, our kids are worth it.

NoteAitheros was in Catholic and Public schools growing up, while his wife was homeschooled.

]]>Mon, 27 Jan 2020 16:59:58 GMThttps://www.shepherdaitheros.com/blog/learning-to-forgive-yourselfThis is something I still struggle with myself even though I understand the truth of it logically. No matter how much you sin and fail God, he still loves you and can forgive you. The hard part for me is actually forgiving myself even knowing God has done that for me.

Something I have always struggled to have is joy in the Lord. In many ways, I actually lost any joy that I had because I became entirely aware of how evil I actually am. I don't think this is something only I struggle with, I am sure many of us do and there isn't an easy solution to it. I was someone who genuinely thought he was a moral person until Hannah finally told me everything I needed to know about God and completely destroyed the illusion I had created for myself. I had actually taken a lot of pride in knowing that, compared to most people, I was pretty great, so when I lost it I never really recovered from it. I live constantly aware that even as I improve I am nowhere near where I need to be and it is like a crushing weight constantly on my head that I can't seem to get rid of.

The solution should be pretty simple, pray and trust what the bible says about it. God loves us so much that no matter what we do we can be forgiven for it. That includes our past, present, and future sins, without any exceptions, all paid for with Jesus's blood on the cross. This, for most people, seems to be an amazing comfort that no matter what they do God will forgive them and welcome them in Heaven. For me and anyone like me though, it doesn't have the same effect. I am completely aware that God is able to forgive me for anything I do, but my need to be a genuinely good person means that I hate myself any time I mess up even remotely. I am not generally afraid of going to Hell, I know Jesus is with me and that I will be forgiven for anything I do, but the hardest thing for me is to forgive myself. I hold on to everything I ever did in the past which is, unfortunately, a very long list. Despite being able to easily forgive other people for the exact same things, I find it almost impossible to forgive myself for anything no matter how minor it was. I feel nothing but shame and despite trying I have not actually managed to stop thinking this way.

I am wrong to think this way. The reality is that Jesus died for our sins so that we wouldn't dwell the way I do. Jesus doesn't want us to dwell on the past, he wants us to dwell on him and the things we can do with him. We have been washed clean of our guilt by his actions and it is wrong to hold on to something that should be long gone. It is not an easy thing but we all need to learn to forgive ourselves, because no one should have to carry the weight of this much sin. Jesus did it for us when he took up his cross and if you are like me and struggling day after day with depression, you know exactly how heavy the weight of our sin is. We should never become the sorts of people that just don't care and do whatever we want even if it is sinful, but we also shouldn't dwell so hard we destroy ourselves.

Learn from your failures and do all in your power not to sin. Pray to God if you fail and do all in your power to never stumble again. He will be at your side helping you even if you don't know it. Don't hate yourself because you are a new creation and Jesus loves you even with all of your flaws. Jesus died on the cross knowing exactly how evil we are and he thinks we are worth saving, we should accept that truth and just learn to be grateful for everything Jesus did for us. It won't be easy, I know I have been trying for a long time, but learning to love yourself as God does is the path we all have to take if we really want to find joy in God.

]]>Sat, 11 Jan 2020 19:21:00 GMThttps://www.shepherdaitheros.com/blog/dont-feel-guilty-for-living-your-lifeSince the day I became a Christian, I have struggled with keeping my interests. I am not talking about the obviously sinful things, I mean the hobbies that weren't wrong but people treated as a problem. People never stop talking about putting God first, and they are right, but they have a tendency to take it so far that you feel like you have to be on your face praying 24/7 or you are barely even a Christian. This is not the right mindset to have and that is what I want to talk about right now.

We all have hobbies and interests. Some of us like sports while others like video games, it doesn't really matter and the options are limitless. Plenty of us have careers we are pursuing and trying to do our best in. All of us want to have enough money to feel comfortable and safe, and so we prioritize money.None of these things are automatically bad by themselves. There isn't anything actually sinful about any of these things but that won't stop people for making you feel guilty about them. Hobbies are fine, so long as they don't control your entire life and you still keep God as your focus while you do them. The same goes for your career, keep God the focus of your life and it is fine to prioritize your job. And money is just a means to an end, needing it is not the same as loving it, and I wouldn't do anything wrong just to get it. The bible talks about the love of money being evil, but that doesn't mean we can't do everything we can to earn enough to provide for our families. There is no biblical requirement to be poor and avoid money.

The reason I bring these things up is because I have met plenty of people who will treat you like a sinner if you focus on any of these things. They act as if when you do normal life things you aren't putting God first and you need to fix it. If you took it all to its logical conclusion, you would live in a box hiding from the world praying all day, occasionally surfacing to preach the gospel before going back to praying. You see, unless you are doing something that puts your direct focus on God, you are doing it wrong. At least if you have this sort of mindset, I am sure feeding the poor would work too but you have no money and you aren't Jesus so more likely than not you would need fed as compared to feeding anyone. It is a pretty scary mindset to have, because pretty much no matter what you are doing, you will feel some sort of guilt. Luckily, this is not what God actually wants for anyone.

The reality is that God made this world for us, even in it's fallen state we were always meant to enjoy it. We were also meant to focus on him, which is as much for us as it is for him. God is amazing and is always with us, he will never let you down. Really, it is only us that let him down, so what is the balance we are meant to have? The answer is to simply live Godly lives, be the example God wants you to be. In anything and everything you do, be exactly the person you know you need to be. God is the focus for me no matter where I go because I never want to disappoint him and I always want to do his work. I have given the gospel to people in every area of my life. When I am playing video games, I tell people about Jesus, the same goes for when I go to work. When I make money, I use it to provide for my family exactly as the bible tells me to do. None of these things are evil, when they are done right they are all just more tools for doing God's work and enjoying the world that God made for us in the first place.

Now there are things that we make more important than God in our lives and those things are genuine issues, but don't let anyone make you feel like a sinner for living your life. We can all do better in some way, and we should, but that should never be taken to the extent that some people take it. Enjoy your lives and do all in your power to be a true follower of Christ. Pray often, and don't change into a different person when it is convenient, always put God first and everything will be okay.

There is an issue that the Church has faced since before Jesus died on the cross and rose again 3 days later, that issue is fake Christians. Before Jesus died it was Judas, someone who followed him everywhere and followed his teachings to such an extent that when Jesus said someone would betray him, no one knew who was going to do it aside from Jesus. In modern times we have the same issue just on a far larger scale and it is exactly what Satan wants, we are casually playing into his hands and acting like we are doing the right thing while we do it. Lets talk about what we are doing wrong and how we need to go about fixing it.

In modern Christianity people have this focus on being totally nice and accepting of anything and everything to make the lost feel welcome. It doesn't matter what there particular sin is, people treat them like family and “love” them as they are. Christians give them half of the gospel and ignore the parts that might make someone feel guilty because it might scare them away. By the end of this process we get what seems like a new follower in Christ. Everyone celebrates because they are saved now and have a relationship with Jesus! The problem is, more likely than not they aren't saved and they don't know Jesus at all. These “converts” will more often be one of two things, false converts, which will either fall away the second things get hard, saying they have already tried Christianity and know it to be false, or they will be the weakest Christians ever with no foundation in the Word of God at all.

This is the best possible situation for Satan, a bunch of people trying and walking away from the faith making it seem less believable to others and people that will continue calling themselves Christian but will have no clue what it is to really follow Christ. Now you are probably thinking, “why does Aitheros think this way about all these new converts?” and the reason is simple: They never heard the full gospel, they never understood why they needed to be saved in the first place. They continue walking around thinking they are good people because all they have ever been told by Christians is that God loves them as they are, which is true but not in the way they say it. God loves us all enough to die for us, but he does not love what we do because we always lean towards evil when left to ourselves. Without Christ, we are destined for the Lake of Fire, a place of eternal torment, because God is going to put us there to punish us for the evil we have done. God is righteous and just, he can't allow evil to go unpunished, so while he loves us all he will also do what needs to be done. Don't assume someone knows what you haven't told them. He showed his love for us by taking on that punishment himself, but we have to repent and put our trust in him to accept that gift of salvation. If you never truly understood that you were worthy of Hell, what do you think you are being saved from? Consistently, people that hear a half gospel think they can earn their way to heaven by being generally good people, and this is exactly how Satan wants it.

As long as people think they can earn their way to heaven, as long as Christians are only preaching half the gospel instead of the whole thing, Satan is winning. We don't have to let it stay that way, all we have to do is follow Jesus's example and preach the full gospel and preach it urgently. Don't be afraid to use the law to make someone feel guilty, that is exactly what it is for. Don't be afraid to lose friends or even family because Jesus warned us that could happen and he is more important no matter what. If you want to truly show that you love someone like God does, give them the full truth so that they can really get to know Jesus right from the start. Don't feel the need to make everyone feel accepted, because frankly God doesn't accept us as we are. He takes us in and he molds us into what we are supposed to be and when judgment comes, we will be sinless because Jesus took our punishment for us and we will be seen in his righteousness, not our own.

]]>Fri, 13 Dec 2019 21:28:24 GMThttps://www.shepherdaitheros.com/blog/do-you-need-to-be-ordained-to-be-a-pastorThis is a topic I hesitate to write about because I know very few will agree with me but I believe it is important. Everyone has basically come to accept that ordination by other people is a requirement for becoming a pastor. I honestly believe the answer is no, and I am going to try and explain why.

Now the reason people think you need to be ordained is because of several verses that can be interpreted that way. I don't believe these verses are saying exactly what people think they are. Common understanding is that the elders of a church have to basically approve of your becoming a pastor. With how it works right now no one will really respect you as a pastor unless this happens, but in reality they only have the power to confirm your call. God is the one who actually calls someone to be a pastor, just as he did with the prophets, apostles and everyone else. We all have a calling from God, no one else has to give us that calling for it to be legitimate. The only power really given to us is how to discern if someone is truly called or not. We know what to expect from a false teacher, therefore we can tell if someone is wrong when they say they are called to be a shepherd. We can also look at all the qualifications for a pastor and determine if someone fits all of those requirements. It is not up to the elders in the first place, a pastor can exist outside of the general church system, but we can all figure out if they are actually called or not.

One of the main reasons I decided this had to be the case is the simple fact that all throughout the bible, God called people to be prophets and kings. The people around them in just about every single case were against God's choice. This taught me one simple thing, we aren't really that reliable at determining these sorts of things. This is only confirmed when you think of how many women have been “ordained” as pastors, not to mention all the Joel Olsteens in the world. We are very good at allowing people that obviously aren't called to be pastors, to be pastors. This is a fact that just can't be ignored, there is just no chance that God would actually leave it up to us on something so important but that is how things are treated.

Another issue is the way we think of things. We like to believe that there is a church system like ours all across the world. The reality is different though, there are plenty of places where there isn't a group of elders to lay their hands on you. God can raise leaders anywhere because they are needed everywhere. Men are going to be called in and while we can confirm it, I don't believe that they need that confirmation to do what they are called to do. We have to remember that the entire world does not work the way we are used to. With that in mind, these types of things will always be easier to understand. It is also worth remembering the flaws of our system, people go to bible college and get to call themselves pastors. I guarantee you many of the people going to school for it are not called to be pastors, some turn out to not even be Christian.

The fact is God calls us to whatever our role in the church is, no one else gets to decide these things. All we have to do is everything in our power to be on the path that God has set for us to best serve him. We can't take any of that authority for ourselves, because it is all his. All we can do is confirm things based off of what God has told us in his word. Pastors are one of the most important roles because they are the leaders in the church, but even with them, it is still up to God. As long as they are preaching the truth and meet the standards that God has set for them we have no reason to stop them. I am confident there are many pastors out there that never fulfilled their calling because no one ever let them step up to their role and that is something we need to fix immediately.

There is something I have noticed since I became a Christian that, as I have studied and learned more, worries me. Being honest, it makes me legitimately mad when I see it happen. It's when people preach the gospel, they only preach the easy half that will make everyone feel nice and welcome and consistently leave the other half unsaid. To truly understand the gospel you need the whole thing, that means that we also need to tell people they are sinners and need to be saved to begin with, not just that Jesus loves them as they are. I believe that college is the main root of this problem but I will leave that for another time, the main thing to understand here is that only giving half of the gospel leads to a ton of problems that we are seeing clearly today.

In our time, there is an insane number of people supposedly falling away from the faith, and those that don't fall from the faith barely care about Jesus at all aside from having a get out of Hell free card. There are plenty of people trying to figure out why this is happening but I believe the reason is simple. The majority of people do not hear the full gospel, including many that call themselves Christian, and because of this they have no roots. They never understood why they needed to be saved in the first place, or how much Jesus truly loved them when he died for them. Most of them go on thinking of themselves as good people who don't need to change a thing as long as they say Jesus's name a lot, go to church, and pray sometimes. This can lead a person to later question God on how He could send "good" people to Hell, "just for not knowing him," rather than understanding that Hell is something earned. We live in a time where people tell you that you should be a pastor just for having even a little biblical knowledge and some charisma, which is only a show of how little of that knowledge the majority of people have.

The fact of the matter is people aren't falling away from the church, they were never really there to begin with, they just acted like they were based off what little they knew. They don't know how evil they actually are, they have no idea what it even meant when they put their trust in Christ. Very few of them have repented of anything or even bothered to really get to know Jesus, they just blindly accept whatever other Christians tell them they should think.The easiest way to get to the bottom of whether or not someone is saved is to test their theology and ask them if they're a good person. If they answer, yes, there's a solid chance they've never had their sins confronted. A nice method to try is what they do over at Living Waters, and tell them you have a test to see whether or not they are good, then ask simple questions like, "Have you ever told a lie?" followed by, "What do you call someone who tells lies?" They ultimately convict themselves in the process.

The next time you share the gospel with someone, make sure you tell them why they need to be saved before you tell them how they can be.